âEvery synthesis becomes a new thesis, which becomes the target of a new antithesis.â âThis antithesis found its synthesis in Stoicism, the philosophy of both master and slaveâ¦ and so on.â âIt is also to be noted that the dialectical process is not simply from thesis and antithesis to final synthesis; it is an eternal, open-ended spiral of development.â
By the time of the American Revolution, settlers were exporting 66 million pounds of rice a year. Indigo became South Carolinaâs second most important early crop. Indigo production merged nicely with rice production on many plantations. But when that market dried up, planters shifted to cotton.
In 1860, the United States produced more than 2 billion pounds (4.5 million bales) of cotton, almost 80 percent of which came from the states of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. About 75 percent of this crop was exported, mainly to England where American cotton enjoyed a near monopoly.